This invention relates to the laser fuels, hydrogen or deuterium, and to solid propellant compositions from which the fuels can be produced.
Hydrogen gas contained in compressed gas cylinders has been widely used in industry as a source of hydrogen for many industrial processes and has been considered and evaluated as a fuel for chemical lasers. However, the handling of high pressure hydrogen gas or hydrogen under cryogenic conditions is not desirable from a logistic consideration for use in a mobile chemical laser system. Thus, it would be desirable to have a storable solid propellant composition that can be employed in a method to yield either hydrogen or a mixture of hydrogen and low molecular weight inert gases. Also this propellant should be based on a self-sustaining chemical reaction once the reaction is initiated. Therefore, a desirable method is one that includes a reaction initiation step which does not introduce deactivating species or undesirable contaminants with the liberated hydrogen.
Therefore, an object of this invention is to produce a solid propellant composition that is employed in a method for generating hydrogen or a mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen for use in the HF/DF chemical laser (hydrogen fluoride/deuterium fluoride chemical laser).
Another object of this invention is to provide a composition and a method for generating deuterium or a mixture of deuterium and nitrogen for use in chemical lasers.